I Bite She Sucks Bloom, Penelope (howl and other poems TXT) 📖

wrist and there was blood around his mouth. He loped toward us, and I saw his legs and arms were unnaturally long and covered in dark fur.

I stared dumbly, not quite connecting what had happened, even as Fang jumped in the back of the truck and gave the side of it a bloody-handed slap to let Riggs know he was ready. He already looked normal again, as if he’d transformed back in the blink of an eye.

Riggs started driving without another word.

When I looked back at Fang, he was jotting something down on a blood-stained notepad with a huge grin on his face. Weird.

"Good news," Riggs said casually. "Looks like Lazarus was otherwise occupied. He sent the lackies to slow us down and they failed. We live to irritate him another day."

"That's it?" I asked.

"For now. But we're getting close to the rebels. If Lazarus tries to come at us again, he'll risk doing it on their territory."

"Why would he care about that?" I asked.

"Our world is all about fragile balances. The rebels threw it all to shit a few years back. There was open war, but no side wants to lose large numbers. It's better for everyone if we find ways to make truces. To skirmish, but not devolve into all-out war. Nobody has the bodies to spare for that," Felix said.

"So they want to fight, but they don't?"

"The truth is everybody thinks they'll be in position to win the war if they have more time," Riggs said. "Werewolves stall because we think we can leverage the rebels to take down the Coven. The Coven stalls because they think relations will fray between us and the Rebels. And the Rebels think they'll convince us to join their war on their terms. It's a bunch of bullshit, but it's how it is."

"So we're safe once we get to this Blackridge place? Couldn't we just wait out the month there and Lazarus would have to leave us alone?"

"Maybe," Riggs said slowly.

Felix looked at him. "You're wondering why Lazarus sent such a half-assed attempt to stop us?"

"Yeah," Riggs said.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"It means if Lazarus didn't want us making it to Blackridge, he has the resources to try harder. Whatever that was back there? It makes me wonder if Lazarus has some reason to want us to make it to Blackridge."

"Why would he want that?" I asked.

"Fragile balances," Riggs said with a grimace. "The thing about them is it doesn't take much to send everything to shit."

21

Riggs

We made it to Blackridge in one piece. I'd never personally been to the place, so I spent some time taking in the sights as we pulled through the front gate. Two young men wearing what looked like posh school uniforms let us through the gate. I felt my lip curl at the sight of them.

Fucking vampires playing at running some kind of boarding school. Playing at war and diplomacy. Thanks to my soft spot for a human girl, I was now the lucky asshole who got to dive headfirst into it all, too.

I was still trying to puzzle out why Lazarus had let us make it here. Because I could downplay it to the others all I wanted, but I knew that was exactly what he’d done. He had let this happen. Why, though?

Sylvie was beside me like a dog on the way to the park—her head perked up and on a swivel as she tried to take everything in. "Are those vampires?" she whispered, staring back as we drove past the boys at the gate.

"Probably," I said. "They certainly stink like vampires."

"Do vampires really stink to you?" she asked.

"Not exactly," Felix said. "He just hates them, so the smell pisses him off. To me, they smell like food."

I grunted. Technically, it was true. Vampires smelled like cooking meat to me. But it was like the smell of food that'd given me food poisoning before. My body associated it with vamps, and it meant the scent alone was enough to piss me off and make me feel sick to my stomach at the same time.

"Park it over there," Felix said. "The Prince asked for you and Sylvie to wait out here while I bring Maisey in. He wants to meet you two before he trusts you to come in."

It figured. At least the Prince wasn't a dumbass, I supposed. He was right to worry that I'd rip his head off, and probably wanted to meet me under the most controlled circumstances possible.

Blackridge was a landscaped property surrounded by old trees and well-groomed mazes of bushes and flowers. Once we'd pulled off the main road, we were in a world of its own back here. We passed several secondary buildings, a statue garden, what looked like a greenhouse that was covered in vines, and even an area with sports fields and equipment. Fucking vamps.

The main building was nestled in the middle of it all. It towered at least four stories high with architectural flourishes like buttresses and towers. It looked like a goddamn castle, and I shouldn't have been surprised. Vampires always had a tendency to fancy themselves as medieval lords. It was part of their problem. They’d ruled the aristocracy in the old days, and most of them still saw themselves as better than anyone and everything else. Places like this just stroked their oversized egos even more.

It was nighttime, but that of course meant something different for them. A surprising amount of vampires who looked young—as unreliable as that guesstimation could be with their kind—were moving between buildings with books in their hands. They all wore the same gray uniforms with white and red trim.

I got out of the truck and sat on the hood while Felix helped Maisey toward the building. Sylvie wasn't thrilled about letting her sister go without her, but she seemed to realize putting up a fight would only delay Maisey getting help.

Within a minute of parking, they had taken Maisey inside the main building and I